STD 11 Commerce ENGLISH

Total Marks : 50

Section A

* Read The Following Passage And Select The Appropriate Answers. [Unit [2]
based]

We lifted her off the bed and, as is customary laid her on the ground and covered
her with a red shroud. After a few hours of mourning, we left her alone to make
arrangements for her funeral. In the evening we went to her room with a crude
stretcher to take her to be cremated. The sun was setting and had lit her room
and verandah with a blaze of golden light. We stopped half-way in the courtyard.
All over the verandah and in her room right up to where she lay dead and stiff
wrapped in the red shroud, thousands of sparrows sat scattered on the floor.
There was no chirruping. We felt sorry for the birds and my mother fetched some
bread for them. She broke it into little crumbs, the way my grandmother used to,
and threw it to them. The sparrows took no notice of the bread. When we carried
my grandmother's corpse off, they flew away quietly. Next morning the sweeper
swept the bread crumbs into the dustbin.
Questions:
1. ......... was customary.
2. What was the time when the grandmother was to be taken for cremation?

* Fill In The Blanks With Appropriate Option In The Brackets And Write The [2]
Answers Only.
3. (endless, jib, mooring, gigantic, knots)
At dawn on January 2, the waves were ………….………. We were sailing with only a small
storm ………………….. and were still making eight ……………………. As the ship rose to the top
of each wave we could see …………..………… enormous seas rolling owards us, and the
screaming of the wind and spray was painful to the ears.

* Answer The Following Questions In Six-Seven Sentences Each.[Unit Based] [6]

4. Three reasons why the author’s grandmother was disturbed when he started going to the
city school.
5. The way in which the sparrows expressed their sorrow when the author’s grandmother
died.
6. Describe the shifts in the narration of the events as indicated in the three sections of the
text. Give a subtitle to each section.

Section B

[1]
* Read The Following stanza And Answer The Questions.[Poem Based] [2]

Some twenty-thirty years later,

She’d laugh at the snapshot. “See Betty
And Dolly,” she’d say, “and look how they
Dressed us for the beach.”
Questions:
7. Who would laugh at the snapshot twenty-thirty years later?
8. How did mother remember her past?

* Answer The Following Questions In About Four To Five Sentences Each. [4]
[Poem Based]
9. What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this word been used?
10. What is the meaning of the line “Both wry with the laboured ease of loss”?

* Answer The Following Questions In About Six To Seven Sentences Each. [Sup. [6]
Unit Based]
11. What impression do you form of cousin Mourad?
12. Did the boys return the horse because they were conscience-stricken or because they were
afraid?
13. Why did the narrator of the story want to forget the address?

Section C

* Read the following passage and rectify the errors. Mention the error and its [2]
corrections:

Error Correction
14. At dawn on January 2, the waves were
gigantic. we were sailed with only
15. a small storm jib and were yet

* Punctuate the following passage. [2]

16. No we were certain she had always been as ‘ we had known her old so terribly old that
she could not have grown older and had stayed at the same age for twenty years

* Rewrite The Sentences Using The Correct Meaning Of Given Phrases/Idioms. [2]
17. As his end was near, he could not speak too much, (problem was serious, near death,
issue came to close)
18. We could find no words for what they had done for us. (became speechless, could not
shout, could hardly show)

* Rewrite the following narration of indirect form: [2]

[2]
19. Jonathan : Can I have a hug?
Gordon : Why am I getting a hug now ?
Jonathan: Because you are the best Daddy in the world and the best captain.

* Do as Directed: [3]
20. She often told us of the games she used to play. (Change the Voice.)
21. We had spent months fitting it. (Change the Voice.)
22. We had been invited to a friend’s house for lunch. (Change the Voice)

Section D

* Read The Following Passage And Answer The Questions Given Below It: [4]
[Unseen Passage]

Hariya busily scrambled amongst the mud and stones and wrapped all our tools
and vessels in one large cloth. When packed it looked like a swollen pillow that he
expertly loaded onto his head. “Let’s go, master,” he said, “The air doesn’t smell
good to me. Looks like thunder and storms. We’d better be home before they
strike.”
I nodded and pulled at the rope attached to the neck of our bullock. “If it rains,” I
was thinking, “the fields are not ploughed, and the mud Mil become sticky.”
“Hariya,” I said, “Did you and Mauliya milk the cow this morning?”
“Oh, yes,” said Hariya. “We woke up before dawn. You were snoring away and got
up just in time for tea. You had a tiring day yesterday.”
“Yes,” I admitted. I could still feel my shoulders aching with the effort spent in
building the mud bunds all around the field. I was grateful to the Reddy boys who
had come to help me in the work. Alone I would never have been able to put up
the mud embankment all around the field in just one day. “At least that is done,
and I ought to be grateful,” I thought to myself. “Even if it rains, they will protect
the good soil of the farmland.”
Questions:
23. Who were working in the field?
24. Why did they get ready to go home so suddenly?
25. Why was the writer tired?
26. Which works done by a farmer are mentioned in this extract?

* Write Answer As Requested. [4]

27. Minaz Mansuri (minaz_mansuri@kmail.com) is the Head Girl of Anshul High School, Surat.
She writes an email to the Managing Director of Amul Dairy (md_admin@ amul.com) for
getting permission to visit the dairy with her classmates. Draft an e-mail on her behalf.

Section E

[3]
* Write Answer As Requested. [4]

28. Write a report for your school magazine on the celebration of Teachers' Day in your
school.

* Write a paragraph in about 250 words on the following: ( Write any 1 ) [5]
29. Trees - Our Best Friends
[Points: importance of trees - usefulness - feiling of trees and its dangers - tree plantation-
future generation]
30. The Importance of Discipline
[Points: necessity - types of discipline - advantages of disciplined life - examples]
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